Priestess giggled while Female Merchant rubbed the nape of her own neck, looking down in embarrassment. There was no one here who didn’t know what marked that spot. But for just that reason, she was able to be this relaxed with them, and that made her happier than anything.
“Man, I should’ve invited you when my big sis got married.” High Elf Archer kicked her feet with some disappointment. Did the abrupt change of subject, the inability to remain focused on one thing for long, come of her being an elf or simply her being her?
A little of both, probably, Priestess thought and smiled, catching Female Merchant’s eye. Female Merchant grinned back.
“Hmm?” High Elf Archer said.
“Oh, nothing. It’s nothing, is it?”
“No, no. Nothing at all.”
“Oh yeah? Fine, fine,” the elf murmured and looked out the window, but then she suddenly clapped her hands, exclaiming “I’ve got it! You’ll have to go to my home after this. They’re right in the middle of a celebration, and I’m sure they’d be happy to see you!”
Female Merchant looked uneasy. “Er, ah… Are you quite certain?”
“Sure I am!” High Elf Archer’s ears sprang up, and she drew a circle in the air with her finger. “I’ll write you a letter of introduction! ’Cause I dunno if I can go with you. We can have a dress made for you and everything!”
“Th-thank you…very much.”
Female Merchant bowed her head respectfully while High Elf Archer bubbled with plans. Priestess watched the two of them, thinking, A letter of introduction. In other words, proof that she’s friends with an elf princess.
She could only imagine how that young elf king would react. At least his wife, she was sure, would be quite pleased. After all, how could they fail to love this innocent little sister?
It happened just as Priestess was having this thought.
“Wow…” Her eyes went wide as she saw the scenery outside the carriage. The green fields that had accompanied them for so much of their journey suddenly gave way to stretches of white sand. “That’s incredible… I thought it would change over more gradually.”
“Me too. I haven’t actually seen it in person before,” Female Merchant replied with a nod.
The scenery had changed totally.
We’ve come such a long way. Confronted by the blue sky overhead, a sky that seemed unusually low and close, Priestess couldn’t resist the thought. Sticking her head out the window, she found that the air was hot and dry. Truly, she was far away now from the western frontier of her kingdom.
“…It might be about time to put the snowshoes on the wheels,” a voice muttered. It was, needless to say, the one who had been silent until that moment: Goblin Slayer. High Elf Archer chided him for suddenly bursting into the conversation, but he didn’t appear to care.
He stretched his arms and legs slowly, then began to cinch down the fasteners on his grimy armor and helmet. Priestess quickly followed suit, making sure her chain mail, which she had loosened for the journey, was likewise tightened down. Relaxing fastenings during moments of rest was a long-standing rule she had learned from him.
“Y-you’ve been awake this whole time?” Priestess asked.
He replied with a quick nod. “I’ve only been napping. Once we leave our nation, the chance of goblin attacks will be very real… Hey.”
“Yeah, right away.” It was Female Merchant who answered this time. With a motion of the reins, she got the horse to slacken its pace and then come to a halt. Behind them, the carriage bearing the luggage likewise stopped. Goblin Slayer looked out the window to make sure, then turned to Dwarf Shaman and Lizard Priest.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Think that’s obvious. Eh, Scaly?”
“Indeed, there is only one thing…”
The three men looked at one another, then promptly stuck out their fists, their hands forming various shapes.
“…Hrm.”
It was Goblin Slayer who, grunting, left the carriage. It would be his task to attach the snowshoes to the carriage wheels.
§
High Elf Archer diffidently watched a bird wheeling far above her in the sky. “Snowshoes. Why do we need snowshoes?”
Quickly bored inside the stationary carriage, she had clambered out and onto the rooftop. She spent a moment or two remarking on how peaceful it was but was soon craning her neck to see what was going on with the wheels.
“I’ve never used them on sand before. There are no guarantees.”
High Elf Archer might have been thoroughly impatient, but Goblin Slayer, for his part, appeared completely calm. He laid boards with some sort of twisty piping attached to them just in front of the carriage wheels, then signaled to Female Merchant with a wave of his hand. She nodded and edged the carriage forward, provoking a “Yipes!” from High Elf Archer on the roof.
“On the snowy mountain, carriage wheels, like one’s feet, can become stuck in the snow and unable to move. It may be the same with sand.”
“Yeah, that’s great. You’re big on hedging your bets, aren’t you, Orcbolg?” As the man in his armor pulled up the edges of the boards so they grasped the wheels, High Elf Archer jumped down over his helmeted head. She didn’t even kick up sand as she landed, just took a few dancing steps forward. Leaving no footprints, of course—she was a high elf, after all. “…Don’t think we need them, though.”
“Then we’ll know more about them next time.”
“Yeah, sure.” High Elf Archer grinned and shrugged. The meticulous streak in this strange adventurer was hardly new.
“How’s it look, Beard-cutter?” Dwarf Shaman called out the window, although he didn’t seem to feel the question was really necessary. These snowshoes had been made by dwarves, you see, and he was more than confident that there would be no issues with them.
“We’ll have to run them to be sure,” Goblin Slayer answered with a shake of his head. “I may not have attached them the right way.”
“I’m sure yeh followed the instructions, but instructions ain’t always perfect.”
They had used several of the luggage straps to secure the runners against the weight, but there wasn’t a very obvious way to tie them. It might seem humorous if they were to fail, but the resulting cascade of luggage could all too easily tip the carriage over. If you simply laughed this off as stupidity, then you would never make progress or find ways to improve. Dwarves knew better than anyone that steel could only be tempered by heating, pounding, and then cooling it.
Dwarf Shaman leaned his stubby body out the window as far as he could to inspect the carriage wheels, then gave a nod of approval. “Be best if we could change the horseshoes, too…”
“Horseshoes,” Goblin Slayer repeated softly. He had the knowledge, of course, but not the know-how. “Does one change horseshoes for the desert?”
“What I hear, sand dwellers use round shoes for their horses. Maybe to keep the horses from sinking in the sand or maybe to take the burden off the hooves.”
“Hmm.” Goblin Slayer grunted at this explication. If and when he got back, he would have to ask the owner of the farm about this. That person knew far more about domestic animals than he did. “For the time being, perhaps we can simply wrap their hooves in reed-woven hoof covers.”
“Make sure they get water, too. And let them graze now, while they can.” Then Dwarf Shaman glowered at the sun blazing above them. “And see if yeh can do it before you cook in that armor of yours.”
“That’s the plan.”
In the distance, High Elf Archer could be heard complaining about how hot it was.
The driver of the luggage carriage behind them was making similar preparations for the desert. “Want me to take care of the horses?” High Elf Archer asked when she saw this. She was met with an indifferent “Please do” from Goblin Slayer. She bounced over to the horses and spoke a few words in a language that did not belong to people.
Goblin Slayer silently busied himself affixing the snowshoes to the second and third wheels. Each phase of the job was accompanied by the creaking of the carriage moving back and forth, and inside Priestess had a finger to her brow, striving to commit everything to memory. Someday—someday, she might come to the desert herself to fight goblins. Not that she could readily imagine it, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.
And if it does, I’d like to be prepared.
No amount of preparation could make one completely content—which is to say, completely eliminate worry. But it could, nonetheless, be helpful. Not all the time or in every situation, but she would be happy if it sometimes helped.
“…Still, I thought it would be more…you know, like a sleigh.” This was another conundrum she wanted to resolve.
Lizard Priest rolled his eyes in his head and leaned forward, amused by her mumbled words. Inquiries from the next generation were always gratifying. “There is ofttimes more than one way to approach things, that is all it means,” he said.
Carriages, for example, might have two wheels or four; they might be pulled by one animal or several. They might be designed primarily to carry luggage or focus on speed as the owner wished. There was an endless number of possible variations.
“The particular choices we make are not right, nor are they wrong. Such is the way of the world.”
“I see…” Priestess nodded. This made sense to her.
“What’s more, sometimes a flaming stone from the heavens may crash suddenly down upon us.”
The point being that unexpected things happened in life. So saying this, Lizard Priest took out some provisions—no, perhaps it should be considered a light snack—consisting of a bit of cheese and started in on it.
Priestess watched him exclaim over his food with a fond smile, then decided to ask her next question. “I wonder how the people here live.”
“Hmm… Perhaps we will discover the answer when we arrive. Horses, for one thing, cannot live without grass.” Lizard Priest twisted his long neck in perplexity, but ultimately wrapped his tail up comfortably. “A horse’s legs spring from water and grass. So perhaps these folk have some other mode of conveyance. Let us see…”
“…I’m given to understand they have lumpy donkeys they ride,” a small voice said from the driver’s seat. Priestess looked over to see Female Merchant fiddling with the reins. “And it seems that much as horses cannot live here,” she went on, “their donkeys cannot live in our lands.”
“Oh-ho,” Lizard Priest rumbled, much intrigued. “You’ve dealt with these creatures before?”
“Just once,” Female Merchant said. “It was unable to walk very well and quickly took ill…”
Priestess thought hard, but unable to come up with a response to her own question, she asked it out loud. “Um, these lumps, they’re…on the donkeys’ heads?”
“No. Their backs,” Female Merchant clarified. “They form two hills, if you will.”
Wow… Priestess breathed, impressed, trying to picture it. It seemed her image of unicorn-like donkeys had been rather mistaken. “You know about so many different things. It’s really wonderful,” she marveled.
Female Merchant didn’t precisely contradict her, but her ears went red. Priestess giggled, which only seemed to embarrass her friend more.
Not long after that, Goblin Slayer climbed back into the carriage with an “I’m done.” And then with a whoosh, the carriage set off over the sands, making a road where there was none. The only markers anywhere to be seen were half-buried statues of the Trade God and other patron saints of traveling. They had little choice but to rely on these markers, without which they might well wander into the desert and die of thirst.
In spite of this risk, Priestess—accompanied by High Elf Archer and Female Merchant, too—was enchanted by the scenery. The sun was falling lower, its light turning red and dyeing the sand a mellow pink color. The red and blue of the sky mingled into purple, and the clouds caught the last of the light, turning them a blazing white.
Meanwhile the wind brought not only a fiery heat, but a mysterious, sweet aroma from somewhere.
“That smells like…flowers,” High Elf Archer said, her mind clearly elsewhere. “Like flowers that only bloom after the rain. Who knows when they bloomed last? But it’s like the smell never left.”
It was almost impossible to believe, but she was right: It was the aroma of flowers.
Who knew there were flowers in the desert? Priestess could smell it, too, the slightest hint of a floral scent amid the blowing sand. “That’s…really something,” she said.
“Yes… It really is.” The whisper came from Female Merchant on the driver’s bench. She looked out over the faintly crimson world, blinked a few times, then rubbed the corners of her eyes. Something glimmered on her rosy cheeks.
For some reason, this made Priestess unaccountably happy.
§
“…Huh, what do you think that is?” Female Merchant inquired suddenly as evening was closing in and all around was turning to shadow. There were no inns in the Mid-world. They would have to camp.
It was then, however, that in the darkness ahead of them they discovered a figure of some kind blocking the path.
“A goblin?” Goblin Slayer asked instantly, leaning toward the driver’s bench. The silhouette, gradually becoming clearer as they approached, did indeed have a humanoid aspect.
“I don’t think so…” Female Merchant, ignoring the pungent odor of the metal helmet, shook her head, sending ripples cascading through her honey-colored hair. “But I can’t be sure. I can’t see well enough.”
“Understandable,” he said. Then he called, “Hey, you!”
“Hey, who?” High Elf Archer growled, her ears twitching in vexation, but she traded places with him near the driver’s bench. Back in the passenger compartment, Goblin Slayer quickly checked over the fasteners of his armor.
“Do you think we’ll have to fight…?” Priestess wondered aloud, likewise making sure she had everything she needed. Maybe she was imagining the possibility that they would have to jump from the speeding carriage. Her movements were quick and efficient.
“Can’t be sure—only sure I don’t like it,” Dwarf Shaman said, taking a gulp of wine and then licking the drops off his fingertips. He looked as unperturbed as ever. “Might be a man, might be a monster. ’Round here, a rank tag from the Adventurers Guild won’t get you anywhere.”
“Ha-ha-ha, indeed, indeed. A lawless wilderness is this…” Even Lizard Priest acted indifferent to the situation, which made Priestess furrow her brow. This wasn’t fear. Nor was it hesitation. Anxiety, perhaps.
I don’t like the smell of it.
That was her thought. If she had to, she might compare it to the moment on an adventure when she stood before the entrance to a cave. It was that same weird tingling sensation that ran down her neck.
“I see armor. Shields… spears, maybe.” High Elf Archer was looking hard, whispering back to the others. “Ten people. There’s a carriage stopped up ahead.”
“There is?”
“They’re waving at us—They want us to stop, too.”
“Sounds like a checkpoint,” Female Merchant said with relief.
This territory didn’t precisely belong to either nation, but both sent out patrols. Even here in another country, the sight of soldiers was at least somewhat reassuring. The travelers might not have the backing of the Adventurers Guild here, but Female Merchant had the patronage of her nation. She carried a travel pass bearing the seal of the king as proof of her identity. She would simply present it and explain that she was a merchant traveling with her bodyguards…
She turned to speak through the opening behind the driver’s bench. “They might want a cut of what we’re carrying. A few coins should do the trick.” That was the way of the world. “First, we’ll head for the nearest city. We might not make it tonight, but at least we can be there by tomorrow. Then we can find out more about—”
As she began to slow the carriage, though, High Elf Archer cried out, “Speed up!” Female Merchant looked at her with confusion. “Just do it!”
“What? But… But what about the checkpoint…?”
“Forget it,” Goblin Slayer said pointedly from inside the carriage. “Go!”
“R-right!” Without further argument, Female Merchant cracked the reins. The sharp sound was followed by a whinny and then the clopping of hooves as the carriage picked up speed. Priestess almost tumbled over, thrown back against her seat by the sudden acceleration. She looked out the window to see the soldiers shouting something and coming after them to stop them. But the carriage was tremendously quick; Priestess couldn’t even catch what the men were saying.
Strangely, even the elf and the rhea on the stopped carriage were shouting at them.
Wait… What?
Something was wrong. Priestess blinked. Did she feel funny about bursting through a checkpoint? Feel it was wrong? No, that wasn’t it. Those were—
“Robbers?!”
“Thankfully, those others shouted at us to run,” High Elf Archer said, sliding back into the passenger compartment and taking up her bow and arrows. “What’s the plan? You want to do this?” she asked Goblin Slayer.
“Only if they come after us.” He was the party leader, even if almost by default. His answer was quick. He knew full well that it was far better to act now than to come up with a brilliant plan later. “We came here to slay goblins. Not thieves.”
“Hmm,” High Elf Archer said, but nonetheless began stringing her great yew bow. Readiness came as easily as breathing to an elf. But not to Priestess. She worked her hands open and closed on her sounding staff uneasily. “Shouldn’t we go help those people…?” she said.
“Eh, I doubt their lives’re in danger,” Dwarf Shaman responded, stroking his beard. “But I’ll admit it ain’t an easy choice,” he added with a frown. “Those bandits’ve gone to all the trouble of dressing up like soldiers to help ’em do their thieving. Don’t think they’d do anything too impulsive.”
“Indeed,” Lizard Priest agreed. “One might even presume that should we intervene, they might feel driven to take hostages or even start killing.”
“Maybe…”
Could the others be right? Perhaps this was yet another of those things that simply depended on a roll of the dice. The words it happens all the time flashed through Priestess’s mind. Could it really be true? She had been asking herself that question for two or three years now. And she still had no answer.
Some people said an answer found too easily was no answer at all, but…
“We do still have a problem,” Female Merchant said, in a voice tinged with worry. Sweat beaded on her cheeks as she raced the carriage through the darkness. “We’ve been running these horses all day. And at night it’s going to get quite cold…or so I’ve heard.”
The situation was dangerous, and there was no room for error. No wonder she sounded anxious. And it was nearly nightfall. If they didn’t find a decent place to camp—well, they might make it tonight, but by the next day they would die. And in the unfamiliar terrain of the desert, even tonight wasn’t guaranteed…
“Gosh, you humans are so fragile and you still try to live in places like this,” High Elf Archer remarked, her tone lighthearted in spite of the situation. She could always relieve the tension.
Priestess tried to let the remark inspire her to laugh a little. Among the things she had learned adventuring was the importance of a bit of easy banter. “The places you elf folk live in are too cramped,” she said.
“We live in Nature, though. You humans are bent on changing it.”
High Elf Archer, smile and all, looked noticeably more cheerful than she did in town. There may not have been any trees in this desert—may have been very little green at all—but it was still Nature and thus congenial to an elf.
Then, however, her expression clouded over and her ears flicked.
“What’s the matter, Long-Ears?”
“Quiet.” High Elf Archer closed her eyes and frowned, concentrating. “…They’re coming. From up ahead.”
“Ahead?”
They weren’t pursuers? The party looked at one another. A separate group? But they had made too much distance on the thieves to run into a sister band.
Goblin Slayer wordlessly took out his weapon, and Lizard Priest settled into a fighting stance. Priestess found she could hear it, too: something pounding across the earth in a great hurry, like their own carriage.
Mounted soldiers?
No—she had heard this sound before. Those weren’t hooves. They were paws. She heard howling voices. And Priestess could think of only one thing that rode animals like that.
“Goblins!”
Across the great, dark desert came the aura of battle.
§
“I knew it.”
“Argh, my adventures with you always end up this way, Orcbolg!”
“It was a goblin-hunting quest, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but still!”
Even as she complained, High Elf Archer leaned smoothly out the window and fired off an arrow. The bud-tipped bolt flew straight and true despite the darkness, disappearing across the sands accompanied by the musical twanging of the bowstring. A second later, the carriage plowed between goblin riders clutching a sundered rope. They must have been hoping to trip the horse pulling the carriage, but High Elf Archer’s skill with the bow had put a stop to their nasty little plan.
“GGOOOROGB?!”
“GORBG?! GOOROGB!!”
Of course, if that was enough to get them to give up, they wouldn’t be goblins. The realization of how powerful their enemies were only made them angry, and anger made them crave vengeance. Jabbering cruelly, the riders hunkered down against the necks of their wargs and gave chase.
“…!” Female Merchant bit her lip while listening to the awful shouts. It was more than simple fear that caused the hands holding the reins to shake. From inside the carriage, though, it was impossible to see how bloodless and pale her face had become.
“Change with me,” Goblin Slayer said abruptly. He glanced out the window between the cabin and the driver’s bench, issued these three sharp words, then opened the carriage door. Immediately, a great rush of air filled the carriage, howling like a storm. Sand still bearing the last of the day’s heat entered the cabin as well, causing Priestess to cough.
“I think…,” Female Merchant started, the shaking of her voice almost keeping her from getting the words out, “…I can do it.”
But Goblin Slayer wasn’t looking for her opinion. “No. I may need you to use spells if the moment calls for it.” His voice, as ever, was nonchalant, almost mechanical. “What’s more, on this quest you are the quest giver, and we your guards.”
“Oh…” The voice Female Merchant heard then was the same one she had heard back on the snowy mountain: the voice of an adventurer. “Yes… Very well.” She steeled herself and nodded. She tied the reins to the bench, then slid to one side. As the carriage raced along, she grabbed the railing on top and stepped onto the running board.
It would all be so simple—if the carriage weren’t moving. Even at this speed, it wasn’t that difficult. But the fear and anxiousness on her face had nothing to do with any chance of falling amid the whirling sand.
“GGR! GOOOGB!!”
“GORGB! GBBGOOB!”
“…Hrgh…”
She could tell the goblins were close. How easily could they catch a horse-drawn carriage on wargs? They were trying to ride up alongside, hoping to drag their foolish prey off the vehicle. She thought she could feel them breathing—No, it must just be her imagination. The howling wind whipped the monsters’ noxious breath away. But still Female Merchant couldn’t shake the sense that she could feel it just behind her.
She had to move quickly. She knew that. It was dangerous to stop. Of course. But her body wouldn’t obey her will. Her neck burned. It hurt. It throbbed.
Her whole body tensed, and suddenly, a dagger went whizzing past her side.
“GOOROGB?!”
The goblin who had been reaching for Female Merchant went tumbling from his warg as if he had been hit with a hammer. She could hear him bounce along the ground, disappearing into a cloud of sand in the distance. Female Merchant resumed working her way along the running board until Goblin Slayer could grab her and drag her inside.
“I-I’m sorry…,” she stammered.
“It doesn’t matter.” He passed the trembling young woman to Priestess with a quick, quiet movement.
“It’s all right, we’re here with you,” Priestess said, puffing out her small chest. “We’ll get through this together—again.”
“…Yes, of course.”
Priestess was relieved to see Female Merchant’s expression finally soften a bit. She nodded to Goblin Slayer, who moved his helmet in response. Now it was he who grabbed the railing and leaned out, waving to High Elf Archer. “How many of them?”
“Hold on, I’ve got to get up top to be sure!”
“Do it.”
High Elf Archer scrambled out as nimbly as a squirrel, quickly disappearing from view. Goblin Slayer moved through the darkness to the driver’s bench, glaring at the oncoming goblins all the while. His armor made the transition a little safer, and while he didn’t have the elegance of High Elf Archer, he still appeared practiced and certain. As soon as he reached the driver’s seat, he gave a crack of the reins.
“GORGB! GRORGB!!”
Ignoring the goblins’ jabbering voices, he kept the horse running. He didn’t look back as he made his calculations.
Caltrops and oil are out of the question with the other carriage behind us.
He didn’t even know if oil would have the intended effect when used on sand. Nor was he especially eager to find out. He would not be able to handle this alone. Well, he would simply rely on the others, then. He had a good deal of help these days.
“I think we can presume this means their nest is close… What do you think?”
“I much doubt that the little devils have the mettle to endure the desert cold,” Lizard Priest said, sounding far calmer than the situation appeared to warrant. There could be few in the Four-Cornered World who knew more of battle than the lizardmen. “Nonetheless, as to whether we might scatter and destroy them… Well, I daresay the terrain is on their side.”
“I want information, but they aren’t the only ones we can get it from.”
“The little devils are too ready to talk anyway. A quick tongue is hardly to be trusted.”
“We exterminate them, then.”
“We do as we always do.”
The two storied warriors quickly agreed on death and destruction, and such they would pursue. The only question was how to go about it…
“Hey, they’re wearing armor!” High Elf Archer told them, poking her head upside-down through the window.
“So they’re well equipped…?” To Priestess, this evoked unpleasant memories of the ogre and the goblin paladin. They wouldn’t go far wrong in assuming that was some greater power behind the little monsters. Some unholy alliance at work…
“I’d say about fifteen of them left,” High Elf Archer added, apparently remembering what she had gone up on the roof to do in the first place, and then she disappeared again. “Correction: fourteen!”
There was another distant goblin shout. Shot through with an arrow, no question.
“GGOGB!!”
“GOORG! GOOROGBBB!!”
But the goblins, of course, would not stay quiet for this—indeed, they began screaming. There had been a frightened young woman on the driver’s bench. And it was an elf girl shooting at them. They were not about to let this opportunity get away, and their tiny brains were full of fantasies of what they would do once they had their hands on the women. And such thoughts would always spark violence.
A belated moment later, there came a chorus of fwizz, fwizz sounds as something flew through the air. One of the things lodged in Goblin Slayer’s armor with a thwack; he pulled it out and inspected it, discovering a slim arrow. It was light and short, like a child’s toy, but it was perfectly capable of piercing and tearing flesh.
“Short bows?”
Mounted goblin archers. He grunted, unimpressed. Then he broke the arrow in half. If they had crossbows, it could be real trouble. “I’ll entrust the luggage carriage to you.”
“Yeah, sure. Let the elf do the dirty work!”
Goblin Slayer took the reins in hand, slowing the carriage’s speed. In perfect sync, High Elf Archer danced through the moonlit sky without so much as a footfall. As she flipped through the night, she glanced down at the ground from the air. With her left hand she loosed three arrows.
“GGOROGB?!”
“GOGB?!”
“GGORGB?!?!”
The arrows rained down on the enemy, throwing goblins from their mounts and onto the earth.
“Eleven more to go… Hup!” When she landed lightly on the luggage carriage, High Elf Archer wasn’t so much as breathing hard. The driver, who looked like a professional carriage wrangler, was cowering on the bench. He might have been used to bandits and thieves, but being pursued across the desert by goblins? He must have thought he was going to die.
“I should never have accepted this job, no matter how good the pay was!” he blathered.
“Guess there’s all kinds of humans.”
For example: desert bandits, adventurers, and weirdos who came to places like this to kill goblins.
Carriages, mounted pursuers, a running battle from one to the other—these should have been the ingredients of a fantastic adventure…
“But nothing that involves goblins is a real adventure!”
A high elf drawing her bow in the moonlight under a starry sky has the sort of beauty that legends are made of. Her arrows could snuff out life mercilessly, and one sent another goblin tumbling into the sand.
Ten more.
“Well! I think Long-Ears has got this under control, don’t you?”
Taking on a high-elf archer on open ground was the height of foolishness. No one knew that as well as a dwarf, but Dwarf Shaman kept his tone light. He took a gratified sip of his wine as if he was simply there to enjoy the scenery, but the slingshot in his hand revealed the lie to this image. He was clearly ready to respond in a flash should anything happen…
“I’m afraid there’s not much ammunition to be found inside a carriage, is there…?” Priestess, likewise armed with a slingshot, said. She looked very serious. She normally found the sling a redoubtable companion, and she still trusted it, but only so long as she had stones to feed it. One could keep a pouch of gemstones on hand, but even this had its limit. And the desert promised no easy task finding stray gravel. But then, the same was true of High Elf Archer’s arrows. Supply was limited.
“The goblins do have some resources, though,” Goblin Slayer said darkly. “And I don’t believe these ones are simply a wandering tribe. We must strike the trunk, or batting away the branches will be pointless.”
“Any hero, howsoever great, will be defeated should their lines of supply be cut off,” Lizard Priest agreed with a nod.
“But we can’t do it right now.”
The enemy’s next move had to be coming. The more so if they had a leader. It was Goblin Slayer’s ceaseless vigilance that allowed them to discover it. But it came late, for he was a human and did not see well in the dark. By the time he noticed the pile of wood buried in the sand—the remains of a carriage—and pulled hard on the reins, it was too late. The horse’s hooves sank into the sand, and it began to whinny noisily.
“I knew the terrain was on their side,” Goblin Slayer said with a sharp click of his tongue. Even as he spoke, the horse was sinking, the carriage beginning to tilt. “It’s a trap. And we were chased right into it.”
“Quicksand?” Dwarf Shaman called. “Don’t panic—If you don’t struggle, it won’t get up to your head!”
“We might be able to stay calm, but what about the horse…?” Female Merchant asked fearfully. Faced with this unfamiliar situation, the animal was crying wildly and shaking its head. Each time it kicked its legs or shook its body, it was sucked deeper into the sand.
“Tie a rope to the carriage behind and see if we can stop the animal.” Goblin Slayer pulled on the reins, firing off instructions even as he tried to calm the horse. It might not be the best possible idea, but it was the one he had. “To let ourselves be destroyed in one fell swoop here would be idiotic.”
“Understood!” came the prompt response from Lizard Priest, who had been all but left out of the battle. He jumped down from the carriage with all the power of a wild animal.
“Here, a grappling hook!” Priestess called, tossing the item cleanly to him. It was straight out of her Adventurer’s Toolkit—she never left home without it.
Lizard Priest waved his tail to and fro, pushing through the sand, not even looking back as he snatched the grappling hook out of the air. On the far shore, Priestess, Dwarf Shaman, and Female Merchant worked together to tie the rope to the carriage frame.
“Hey, what’s going on down there?!” High Elf Archer shouted; even as she spoke, she grabbed an arrow out of the sky as it flew at her, then put it right in her bow and fired it back. It went clean through the archer who had launched it, slinging him backward. Nine.
At this rate, though, they would soon be surrounded. They hadn’t gained that much distance on their enemies. If they had to engage in hand-to-hand combat, the situation would change, again. High Elf Archer clicked her tongue, a most un-elf-like behavior.
“Oh, it’s just a little trap!” Lizard Priest said from the sand, as if he were talking about a passing rain shower. Then he anchored the grappling hook on the carriage. The next step should have been to get the driver to stop the carriage, but…
“This is why I hate accompanying adventurers! This desert might as well be the entrance to hell…!”
“As hell does not exist, you may relinquish such worries,” Lizard Priest told the terrified driver. “There is only the process of heaven and earth: When we die, all of us become food for the insects that live in the sand, thereby returning to the great cycle.” The sermon may have seemed quite gracious, but the only response was a sort of strangled cry. Lizard Priest snorted. “Mistress ranger, I shall take the reins myself, so it will be yours to handle the attack!”
“Argh, why does it always end up like this…!” The carriage came to a halt, and goblins mounted on wargs approached from every side. High Elf Archer felt around in her quiver, counting how many arrows she had left, then her lips pulled down in a frown. “Well, ‘Step in a trap, break your own back,’ as they say. Let’s see what we can do!”
“Ha-ha-ha, words worthy of a dwarf maiden!” Lizard Priest clambered into the driver’s seat with a howl, the carriage creaking in protest. High Elf Archer jumped lightly past him, an arrow ready to protect the reptilian shaman.
There were nine riders left. There might be reinforcements hiding in the darkness. And she didn’t want any wargs jumping at them…
“Point is, bring down their numbers…!” High Elf Archer met the goblins with a literal rain of arrows. Goblin Slayer, meanwhile, had quickly given up trying to control the horse. The carriage creaked to a stop as it strained against the rope, but the trapped animal was in a mad panic.
“They’ll get us at this rate.”
Should he get down and join the battle on foot? He took the lamp hanging by the driver’s bench and hung it from his hip instead. Few people underestimated goblins less than he did, but goblins on wargs were even more dangerous than usual. Nine goblin riders meant there were, in effect, eighteen enemies. Three times as many as he had in his party.
But the odds are always against us, Goblin Slayer thought as he contemplated working his way around for an attack from behind.
That was when Priestess, who had been looking at the ground in thought, raised her head again with conviction. “U-um…!” Dwarf Shaman, Female Merchant, and Goblin Slayer immediately looked at her. Priestess couldn’t quite decide where to put her eyes, but still she sounded fearless as she said, “I think…there’s something we can do.”
We need hardly say how Goblin Slayer responded.
§
“GRROORGB!!”
“GRG! GORGB!!”
For the goblins, this must have been a most unpleasant night. The rope they had held taut, per that person’s haughty instructions, had suddenly and mysteriously snapped. It was because of that person’s assurances they had stayed up late into the “night” to set the ambush, even though they were tired.
This was why they hated listening to such people. The reason the goblins with all their resentment didn’t slacken their pursuit was, of course, not loyalty. It was the terrified, weeping young woman riding in the carriage. And there, shooting at them from the roof of the second vehicle, was that not an elf female?
Yes, several of their stupider comrades had been shot to death, but the same would not happen to any of them. Look, while the elf was feeling so proud of herself shooting at them, the quarry was headed straight into the quicksand. They would need only to get close, drag her down, destroy the carriage, and do what they pleased with those inside.
Now. Now was the moment, now that the carriage was stopped. No need to hold back anymore. These people had tried to kill them. So it was only fair these people should be killed in turn…!
“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, please, by your revered hand, cleanse us of our corruption!”
The goblins failed to understand the words that rang out at that moment. A voice filled the air, its cool sound spreading out like a ripple and vanishing—Perhaps they didn’t even hear it.
But they certainly understood when the legs of their mounts sank under them a second later.
“—?!”
“GOOROGB?!”
This was bizarre. Ridiculous. Impossible. Such was probably what these utterances meant. They shouldn’t have been in the quicksand yet. They couldn’t be trapped in it, not like their stupid prey could. And yet reality paid no heed to the goblins’ objections. Their wargs continued to be sucked deeper and deeper into the sand.
Sucked into?
If any of the goblins had been capable of asking this simple question, he might have noticed. He might have seen the whirlpool at the center of the sand. The pure, running spring that had appeared just where their prey had been trapped.
§
“A miracle of purification…!” Goblin Slayer called out sharply, and Priestess nodded briefly in affirmation.
In the desert there was something called quicksand, sand that flowed like a river. Spearman and Witch had told Priestess about this before she left, and now her mind whirled.
They said it was bottomless, like a swamp. Exceedingly soft, a horse’s hooves would sink into it. It was like a bucket of sand with water poured into it. It might look like just plain sand at first glance, but if you so much as stuck a finger into it, you couldn’t get it out. Because the appearance was deceiving: You couldn’t see all the water.
It’s essentially a sandy spring.
And if so, there was no reason she couldn’t use Purify on it.
Priestess was relieved to know her request had reached the Earth Mother. She had admonished herself never to offer another prayer that would earn a rebuff as she had before.
Naturally, she was only able to purify some of the sand. She had created a pure spring, and other sand nearby rushed into it. The mix of water and sand instantly created quicksand that would suck in anything standing in it. It was only for that one instant that someone could have seen an actual spring in the middle of it all. But she knew that he would take advantage of that instant. He and her friends!
“Do that thing you did with the sea serpent!”
“You got it!”
Goblin Slayer did indeed begin shouting instructions immediately, and Dwarf Shaman promptly shouted back. Then he began to intone a spell that would be salvation to the drowning horse and carriage. “Nymphs and sylphs, together spin, earth and sea are nearly kin, so dance away—just don’t fall in!”
The horse’s hooves bit into the water. Its body began to float. The sprites lifted it up, encouraged it, and helped it along the surface. Dwarf Shaman whistled to see the horse, enchanted with the Water Walk spell, trotting along. “Us spell casters do pull our weight. Beard-cutter, the least you could do is remember a spell’s name.”
“It was too sudden,” he said from inside the metal helmet. “Cast it on the horse behind as well. We’re going to fly.”
“On it!” As Dwarf Shaman set about calling out to his sprites again, Priestess let out a little breath of relief.
Thank goodness it worked.
“…You’re really something,” Female Merchant said, looking wide-eyed at her.
“Me? Oh, no,” Priestess responded with a shake of her head. “I just relied on what I’d been told. I didn’t figure any of it out myself.”
She was just lucky it had worked. This wasn’t really a tactic to rely on in a serious fight like this. What would have happened if it had turned out to be a mistake? For all her thinking, she’d had no backup plan, and that sat uneasily with Priestess. Certainly she didn’t feel she had any call to be proud of what she had done, even less so arrogant…
“No, you helped.”
Why did those words, murmured from within the metal helmet, make her so happy?
Right. She nodded quickly, then looked down at the tied-off rope in hopes of hiding the flush in her cheeks. It was truly made for adventurer: Even under the weight of the other carriage, it only creaked and groaned; it never threatened to snap.
“Excuse me,” Female Merchant said, finally too restless to bear it any longer. “I can keep an eye on this.” Her meaning came across clearly: She wanted something to do. Priestess understood that feeling very well.
“All right.” She nodded, smiling. “Let us know if there’s any trouble!”
“Right!” Female Merchant exclaimed, then took the knot of the rope firmly in hand, pressing it down.
Satisfied that all was in order, Priestess slid across to the passenger seats, only to find herself looking at Dwarf Shaman. When she saw the grin on his face, she puffed her cheeks out with a “Hmph!” But that sweet show of annoyance just seemed to amuse him more. He burst out laughing, and Priestess felt—how to put it?
“I wish you’d not.”
“Aw, no harm in it, lassie. I mean it in the best possible way—havin’ a laugh to see you’ve become a real adventurer.”
Could that be true?
She certainly didn’t feel it herself, but she was aware of the rank tag that dangled just underneath her clothes. She was starting to become used to the weight of the steel, she thought, but there was still something that felt funny about it.
“Hey, who did all that just now?!” High Elf Archer asked, her voice like a tinkling bell as she vaulted into the carriage. The fact that her quiver was much lighter than before bespoke the fate of many of the remaining goblins. Drowning, confused, and trapped, she had picked them off one by one.
Priestess imagined the bodies of the goblins and their wargs left in the sand. She felt no sympathy or sadness for them. There was no tug on her heartstrings. There was only, in her heart, a prayer that their souls would safely reach heaven.
“It was all thanks to the little lady here,” Dwarf Shaman said with a stroke of his beard and a gleam in his eye.
“What?!” High Elf Archer exclaimed. “I knew that weirdo was a bad influence. Just make sure you don’t make your god angry at you, okay?”
“Er, uh, no. I mean yes. I mean… It’s all right. I’m, er, I’m being careful these days.” Priestess was thrown, embarrassed by this display of genuine concern.
“These days?” High Elf Archer replied, squinting suspiciously, but one could only smile. Purify was a miracle that required especially careful use.
Still…
Priestess shivered from the night air that crept into the passenger compartment of the carriage. They had just overcome one obstacle. But that was all. The desert was vast—When she thought of all the great unknown that awaited them, she realized that what had just passed was only prologue. And she was not wrong to think so. Indeed, she would see how right she was the very next day.